


Touch--Beauty and the Beast

by MauiSunsetz



Category: Beauty and the Beast (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 11:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MauiSunsetz/pseuds/MauiSunsetz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beauty and the Beast--I've fallen in love with this show and the hiatus is torture! I felt moved to explore the impact that Catherine makes on Vincent simply by touching him. Retelling of some of the events of the Beauty and the Beast pilot from Vincent's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch--Beauty and the Beast

Touch

For the last decade, I’d been a creature of the shadows. The only way to stay safe and to keep J.T. safe was for everyone to continue to believe that I was dead. 

Crimes tend to happen under cover of darkness, in the back alleys, hidden corners, my territory. Every once in a while I got the opportunity to help someone in trouble. This was as close to human contact as I could get anymore. I had fallen so far from the days when I was practicing emergency medicine and helping people every day. 

Every attempt at an antidote for my transformation had been a failure. My family was dead and anyone who still remembered me had mourned me long ago anyway. There was only J.T. now. If I was actually dead, J.T. could reclaim his life. After a decade trapped in this half-life with me, I owed him a chance at happiness. I had plenty of blood on my hands already. Maybe the only way to stop the monster inside me was to end my life.

At the sound of tires on gravel a quarter mile away, my senses alerted. I warned J.T. that someone was approaching and hid upstairs. I looked out the window as the car pulled up. It wasn’t just speculative realtors or lost drivers this time. The women who got out of the car were carrying weapons, but they were laughing. They didn’t seem to be from Muirfield. It was then that I caught a glimpse of her. Catherine Chandler. She was here. But why was she here? A lump caught in my throat. I’d secretly kept track of her ever since I’d saved her from Muirfield agents nine years ago. J.T. would probably kill me himself if he found out. It’s not like I stalked her or anything, I just checked in on her from time to time. I’m not exactly sure why I felt drawn to her, maybe because we’d both escaped the clutches of Muirfield, but it felt good to see someone I’d saved living her life. Her success almost made me feel like I had a purpose. 

I knew Catherine was a homicide detective and she wouldn’t really be after J.T. I knew the woman I’d tried to save last night hadn’t survived. My stomach twisted as I realized Catherine might have tracked me here. I must have left some evidence somehow. Last night’s events replayed in my mind in a flash. Maybe someone had seen J.T.’s car? I suddenly wished I’d constructed a better hiding place in here. After a decade of isolation, I’d started to feel invisible.

I froze when they knocked on the door. J.T. did an admirable job of brushing them off politely. They didn’t have a warrant so they couldn’t search upstairs without a reason or permission. When Catherine peered up at the second floor windows as she left, my heart skipped a beat. I knew she couldn’t see me, but I could tell she was still curious.

J.T. was predictably pissed off about my fingerprints showing up at a crime scene and that I’d been keeping tabs on Catherine. But he was right; I’d screwed up this time. In the end, it didn’t matter that I hadn’t killed that woman. If Muirfield got wind of this investigation, I’d just put him in real danger.

The next day, I heard the same car approaching. J.T. was gone for the day already. I froze for a second, trying to decide what to do. I could make a run for it. If they were back, they probably had a warrant. As I looked out the window, I saw it was just Catherine in the car this time. What did that mean? Would she really foolish enough to execute a warrant to search for a supposedly dead soldier on her own? Someone like that was dangerous. Trained killers don’t pretend to be dead for no reason. What if I shot first and asked questions later? It was a mixture of my own curiosity, indecision, with a shot of self-destruction that kept me from running. I just hid upstairs again like an idiot.

Our first meeting was terrible. I tried to convince her that I didn’t kill the woman she was investigating but I was so rusty with human interaction that I made her even more suspicious and even managed to reveal my connection to her mother’s case in the process. I had to literally beg her not to say anything when her partner showed up. I should have just run.

I started actively following her from a distance now that I knew she was on Muirfield’s radar. I was in the subway tunnel when I heard echoes of the sounds of a struggle. I smelled blood. I ran my fastest and felt myself shift as the adrenaline kicked in and my instincts took over. It gives seeing red a whole new meaning.

I neutralized the two people trying to kill Catherine. She had been knocked onto the train tracks, but she wasn’t seriously injured. I kicked her gun over to her and took off back down the tunnel. 

I heard her following me in the tunnel, screaming hysterically at me. Something was wrong with her. The train approached but she didn’t react in time. She started running right in the middle of the tracks instead of getting over to the side. She was in danger and I could smell her fear. I sprinted back and instinctively grabbed her tiny frame. I pulled her to the side of the tunnel, shielding her with my body as the train rushed by dangerously close.

As the train passed, I felt myself shifting back to human form. Catherine was about to discover my dark secret. This could go horribly wrong. After the train passed, I released her and braced myself for her reaction.

She turned around and looked straight at me, her eyes wide but unafraid. She simply said, “You’re him.”

I took her back to the warehouse to tend to her wounded leg. It was probably a mistake, but my secret was out and there was no going back now. Maybe if I explained things, I could convince her to keep quiet for her own sake as well as mine. I relayed my experience with Operation Muirfield as best I could. How I had stupidly volunteered for the experimental program without getting enough information or considering the potential downside. All of my medical training hadn’t meant anything when I was blinded by grief and anger over my brothers’ deaths.

I continued, “But something went wrong. Any time our adrenaline kicked in we became monsters. They couldn’t stop us. We couldn’t stop us. So, they gave orders to shut it down, to eradicate us all.”

“How did you survive?”

I shrugged. “Luck.”

She looked around at the chemistry equipment. “So, all of this…for an antidote?” 

I picked up a vial and set it back down. “It doesn’t work.”

“You’ve been hiding out here?”

“Yeah. J.T.’ s the only one I can trust.”

“Except you go out there and you save people.”

I shook my head and looked down as I denied it. “No.” I was a criminal and a monster that had killed many people, justified or not. I had no illusions about being any kind of hero. 

She said, “No, you do.” 

I looked at her cautiously as she stepped closer. What was she doing? 

“You saved me, and you tried to save Ashley Webster.”

I helped people in an effort to do some good again in the world. It was my only human interaction besides J.T. “I guess it reminds me of who I used to be.”

“A doctor?”

For some reason, I felt I could be brutally honest with her. “Human.”

Her beautiful eyes were wide as she reached out and gently touched my face, lighting up my nerve endings and taking my breath away. I hadn’t been touched in so long that I’d truly forgotten what it felt like. What the warmth of human skin felt like. What a woman’s touch felt like. I was overwhelmed for a few seconds, intoxicated by the sensation. 

I snapped back to reality. There was no future here. This was too dangerous for all of us. I told her to go and to not come back. She still kept on about her mother but I eventually convinced her to leave. She needed to stay away from me.

Long after she left, I could still feel her hand on the skin of my face, almost like a burn. I couldn’t stop myself from longing to feel it again. It awakened something nearly dead inside me--hope. Hope for the possibility of some kind of life again. Catherine had seen me when I wasn’t myself, when I was a despicable monster. And she still was able to look at me like that. Like I was a human. Like I could be loved.


End file.
